Another World

Nick's grandfather Geordie lies dying. As Nick watches, Geordie starts to relive the horrors surrounding his brother's death in the painful days before his own. Meanwhile Nick and his wife Fran try to unite their increasingly fractious family by organizing the children into decorating the living room. Gradually, as the old wallpaper is peeled away an obscence portrait of an Edwardian family is revealed. The drawing is an exercise in hate, revealing the history of their house and casting a terrifying shadow over the family.

Review :
""Another World demonstrates the extraordinary immediacy and vigor of expression we have come to expect from Barker . . . A powerful and moving and deeply humane study of the tyranny of the past and the quandaries of the present."--Barry Unsworth, "The New York Times Book Review "[Pat Barker] is the natural successor to George Orwell, like him a keen and passionate defender of humiliated children, foot soldiers and what's become of the British working class."--"Newsday "One of Pat Barker's gifts is her mix of compassion and bleak realism . . . Barker's confidence as a stripped-down, elegant stylist is evenly matched by her moral depth.""--"The Boston Sunday Globe "Barker is capable of getting across a powerful message with the absolute minimum of rhetoric, one of the rarest gifts a writer can be blessed with. The surface simplicity of her method conceals, then slowly reveals, a narrative with all the richness and complexity of a symphony."--"The New Criterion "This old-fashioned novel in a modern idiom remains one of the best things she has ever done, surely the most moving." --Ruth Rendell, author of" Harm Done "A remarkable novel, stark but human at the center." --"The Sunday Star-Ledger "[Barker's] remarkable visits to the past help replenish the emptying containers of memory by substituting storytelling for forgetting. With her novels, she adds dignity to this century's often bleak and undignified human record." --"The Los Angeles Times Book Review "Barker's writing is brilliant; the thoughtful, inventively composed sentences are a joy to read." --"The Austin American Statesman ""Another World" demonstrates the extraordinary immediacy and vigor of expression we have come to expect from Barker . . . A powerful and moving and deeply humane study of the tyranny of the past and the quandaries of the present."--Barry Unsworth, "The New York Times Book Review" "[Pat Barker] is the natural successor to George Orwell, like him a keen and passionate defender of humiliated children, foot soldiers and what's become of the British working class."--"Newsday" "One of Pat Barker's gifts is her mix of compassion and bleak realism . . . Barker's confidence as a stripped-down, elegant stylist is evenly matched by her moral depth.""--""The Boston Sunday Globe" "Barker is capable of getting across a powerful message with the absolute minimum of rhetoric, one of the rarest gifts a writer can be blessed with. The surface simplicity of her method conceals, then slowly reveals, a narrative with all the richness and complexity of a symphony."--"The New Criterion" "This old-fashioned novel in a modern idiom remains one of the best things she has ever done, surely the most moving." --Ruth Rendell, author of" Harm Done" "A remarkable novel, stark but human at the center." --"The Sunday Star-Ledger" "[Barker's] remarkable visits to the past help replenish the emptying containers of memory by substituting storytelling for forgetting. With her novels, she adds dignity to this century's often bleak and undignified human record." --"The Los Angeles Times Book Review" "Barker's writing is brilliant; the thoughtful, inventively composed sentences are a joy to read." --"The Austin American Statesman"